It’s 1930. You’re sitting at a table in a darkly lit pub called the Eagle and Child in Oxford with a few friends.
One of your friends clears his throat to address the group. He picks up a page from a stack of papers in front of him and says, “I’d like to read the first line from the book I am working on.”
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”
He looks up, and waits for the others at the table to comment.
Maybe he knew it at the time, or maybe he didn’t, but as J.R. Tolkien worked on The Hobbit he had surrounded himself with some of the greatest literary minds in England at that time.
Every week, C.S. Lewis and J.R. Tolkien gathered a small group of fellow Oxford men, jokingly calling themselves the ‘Inklings’, for readings and criticism of their work, and for general conversation. The Hobbit and, later, The Lord of the Rings were born during the 1930’s and 1940’s when the Inklings were meeting.
Other well known works to come out of the members of the Inklings during those decades include:
• Charles Williams Descent into Hell and All Hallow’s Eve
• C.S. Lewis “Space Trilogy”— Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength and then the Chronicles of Narnia.
In reading about the Inklings, you’ll find more than a dozen names associated with the group over the time they met. All were very accomplished, most were Oxford instructors and almost all were published.
Is it as simple as like attracts like?
Naturally that is part of it. We’re all drawn to people who we see as similar to us.
But I think the bigger part of this story is that Tolkien and Lewis set the group up to meet for the purpose of making friends and improving their work. They invited people to meet with them.
They consciously chose to connect with people they enjoyed who challenged, supported and made them better.
Who is in your life right now that pushes you to be better? Who in your life says ‘was that your best‘? Who in your life cheers (And means it) when you achieve?
The principle of surrounding yourself with the right people is not new. Napoleon Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich sited this as a success secret of the uber successful in his day, including Ford, Schwab, Wrigley and many others who are household names even now, 80 years later.
In his book he states that the first step to turning your desire into action is to:
Ally yourself with a group of as many people as you may need for the creation, and carrying out of your plan, or plans for the accumulation of money – making use of the “Master Mind” principle described in a later chapter. Compliance with this instruction is absolutely essential. Do not neglect it.
It’s been stated by smart folks like Jim Rohn and Kevin Hogan that you’re going to be the average of the 5 – 7 people you spend the most time with, so choosing who those folks are is pretty important.
Maybe you’re lucky enough to already be friends with a brilliant mind like C.S. Lewis and other folks who are pushing and supporting you, but in case you’re not, here’s how you can find and connect with great people:
Whenever I want to make an improvement in my life or business, the first thing I do is seek out a new mentor and then surround myself with people who will challenge, inspire and support me (while I do the same for them).
In 2012 I realized I wasn’t happy with my fitness level anymore. I’d gotten lazy and while I was working out, I wasn’t even maintaining my fitness level with what I was doing. I found a coach (Coach K at Crossfit Nanaimo) and started to hang out with new friends like Bremo. Before working out with those two (and the other fit folks at the gym), I couldn’t do a single pull up. These days I can do 40 in a workout! I’m running faster and lifting more weight than ever before in my life (And I was on the Cross Country Running team in College!).
Changing who I was hanging out with and learning from transformed my fitness level.
When I wanted to leave my job in 2008, I found a mentor in a man named Michael Masterson and found new friends in a group called the Internet Money Club to help me start a business online. It worked. I launched my first online business and left my job to build it … increasing revenue by 50 – 100% almost every year since 2009. When my husband wanted to catapult our real estate investment business from doing 5 deals a year to doing 12 he hired a mentor named Greg Habstritt and joined a VIP Mastermind group. We quickly figured out what we needed to improve in our business and started raising millions in investment capital to grow our business.
Just about every big achievement in our lives followed that formula … get stuck, hire help find a few new friends, and then work until we feel the massive growth spurt.
If you’re ready to get help getting where you want to go in your business and life, then you might consider a mastermind group led by a coach who has done the thing you want to do. Whether it’s
- Transition from your job to running your online or real estate business full time,
- Self publishing and selling your book with success,
- Boosting your income by becoming the recognized authority in your niche (which leads to you being paid more for what you do and people coming to YOU with the opportunities),
- Comfortably selling what you do when you’re uncomfortable with the idea of sales (influence strategies for introverts and others who dislike pushy sales techniques),
- Or, adding an income stream by becoming a coach or consultant,
you might find that the Momentum Mastermind for Influencers is exactly what you need to boost your income, achieve your goal, meet great people and have fun doing it.
1st Image Credit: © Monkey Business Images | Dreamstime.com
2nd Image Credit: © Basphoto | Dreamstime.com
